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Symbol	Price	Change
BA	42.05	0.00

CIT	0.41	0.00

GOOG	442.60	0.00

GS	156.84	0.00

IBM	110.64	0.00

INTC	18.50	0.00

JPM	36.13	0.00

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Denied a federal bailout, CIT Group Inc. saw its shares plunge 75 percent Thursday as bondholders scrambled to find an 11th-hour solution that would keep the commercial lender out of bankruptcy protection.

But there is no guarantee they will be able to save the ailing company, which teeters on the brink after failing to get emergency government funding. CIT said late Wednesday that talks with regulators about a possible rescue had broken off after days of round-the-clock negotations.

The move marked a defining moment for the Obama administration and showed it's drawing a line in the sand on federal rescues for troubled financial firms.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly laid-off Americans signing up for unemployment benefits last week, and those using this safety net over a longer period, both plunged. But the government figures released Thursday were clouded by difficulties adjusting for temporary shutdowns at auto plants.

The Labor Department said new applications for unemployment insurance dropped by a seasonally adjusted 47,000 to 522,000, the lowest level since early January. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected claims to rise to around 575,000.

Even if the recession ends this year as the Federal Reserve and many private economists expect, companies are expected to keep trimming payrolls.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors piled into technology stocks again to extend the market's rally.

Hope for more good earnings from technology leaders made the industry an attractive bet again Thursday, a day after a strong forecast from chip maker Intel Corp. lifted stocks across the board.

The tech-laden Nasdaq composite index advanced for the seventh straight day and closed at its highest level since October as traders prepared for profit reports from Internet search company Google Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. Both posted better-than-expected profits after the closing bell.

The Dow rose 95.61, or 1.1 percent, to 8,711.82, its highest close since June 12.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. reported a 36 percent jump in second quarter profits Thursday, easily surpassing analysts' forecasts as huge gains in its investment banking business outweighed higher losses from bad loans.

The results came two days after rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also posted surprisingly good results, solidifying the companies' position as the strongest players in the industry. Many other banks are still struggling to emerge from the worst of a credit crisis that peaked last fall as well as a recession that has sent loan defaults higher.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. showed off its moneymaking prowess again with a second-quarter profit that exceeded analyst estimates, shaking off its slowest revenue growth yet as the recession caused Web surfers to click on fewer ads.

The performance disappointed investors as shares in the Internet search leader fell by nearly 3 percent in Thursday's extended trading after the results were released.

Google is the most profitable company on the Internet, thanks to its dominance of the online advertising market. That means its lackluster revenue growth could foreshadow even more significant sluggishness among other Internet companies that rely on advertising and e-commerce when they report their second quarter result in the next couple weeks.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- IBM Corp. blew away second-quarter profit projections and jacked up its full-year earnings forecast Thursday, a rare sign of confidence from a major corporation in the recession.

Even though IBM's sales are slipping, the results demonstrate the technology company's belief that it can continue wringing out more profit from its services and software divisions. IBM has been relentless in cutting costs by automating tasks and shifting labor to cheaper locales, while protecting prices.

The 2009 profit forecast went to at least $9.70 per share, from $9.20 per share, a target that IBM set in January.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The National Association of Home Builders says its housing market index climbed in July to the highest level in nearly a year, as low interest rates and other incentives helped builders woo homebuyers.

The Washington-based trade association said Thursday the index rose two points to 17, its highest reading since it was 17 in September.

Index readings lower than 50 indicate negative sentiment about the market. The last time it was above 50 was in April 2006.

The report reflects a survey of 484 residential developers nationwide, tracking builders' perceptions of market conditions.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers accused former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Thursday of bending to the demands of a major bank and keeping negotiations of a hefty bailout secret in his rush to stabilize financial markets last year.

Paulson, testifying for the first time since leaving office in January after putting in place a $700 billion bank bailout program, was defiant in his response and admitted no wrongdoing.

Lawmakers are frustrated that despite hefty infusions of cash into the nation's largest banks, unemployment and home foreclosures are on the rise.

PARIS (AP) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday he saw "durable, very important signs" of recovery in the financial system -- but he warned against repeating the mistakes of the 1930s and withdrawing stimulus too soon.

Geithner, in Paris on the last leg of a tour that has taken him from London to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, acknowledged he was keeping up pressure on foreign governments not to slacken in their efforts to resuscitate the global economy.

Decisions to tighten monetary policy and control government spending in 1937 under U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt are widely believed to have helped snuff out a recovery in the midst of the Great Depression that followed the 1929 stock market crash.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- A Chinese-born engineer was convicted Thursday of stealing trade secrets critical to the U.S. space program in the nation's first economic espionage trial.

A federal judge found former Boeing Co. engineer Dongfan "Greg" Chung guilty of six counts of economic espionage and other charges for hoarding 300,000 pages of sensitive documents in his home, including information about the U.S. space shuttle and a booster rocket.

Federal prosecutors accused the 73-year-old stress analyst of using his 30-year career at Boeing and Rockwell International to steal the documents.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 8.06, or 0.9 percent, to 940.74. The Nasdaq rose 22.13, or 1.2 percent, to 1,885.03, its best finish since Oct. 3.

Benchmark crude for August delivery added 48 cents to settle at $62.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices lost 34 cents to settle at $62.75 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for August delivery added less than a penny to settle at $1.7135 a gallon, and heating oil for August delivery climbed 1.73 cents to settle at $1.5994 a gallon.

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